Escapist
by dragonrush
Summary: I was always too good at running away.


_i._

Crystal hasn't spent a night in her mother's house since she turned 10.

The wilderness is her home now. She has grown accustomed to waking up to the cerulean sky, pale grey clouds drifting leisurely around in the upper regions of the air; to soft green grass brushing gently against her arm as her eyes slowly open; to the cool fabric of her years-old sleeping bag, all crinkled and worn, but still comfortable and able to trap heat in. Crystal's only form of communication she has with her mother are the short pokegear calls they exchange once a week; most of the time, she is okay with that.

Sometimes, however, she pictures her mother in her mind, all wavy brown hair and heart-warming brown eyes, a ready smile on her aging face, and wonders whether she deserves better than sitting around in her small house, in the backwater town of New Bark, forever awaiting the daughter who would never come.

 _ii._

At first, Silver had been a stranger, a mysterious red-haired thief with an ever-present snarl on his face. Crystal had only encountered him once, but already she hated him, hated his pointlessly cruel attitude, hated how he had broken all moral code in the world in order to acquire himself a pokemon.

After than, Silver had been an enemy, an angry little boy who treated his pokemon with cruelty they didn't deserve, and Crystal had taken great pleasure in defeating his team of pokemon, relishing in the shocked look on his pale face.

Then, Silver had been a rival, a strong battler who could always find ways to push her buttons and (perhaps unwillingly) encourage her to improve her skills. Crystal had still enjoyed defeating him, but the twisted delight she had previously felt was gone, replaced with warm pride.

After defeating the League, Silver had been a good friend, best friend even, though he loathed to admit it. Sometime in the years she had known him, Crystal had grown attached to the red-haired boy with the harsh attitude and cold actions. Whether that was a good or bad thing. she didn't know.

But then they grew too close.

Silver had kissed her once. He had been drunk out of his mind, the stench of alcohol evident in his uneven breaths. Crystal had been completely sober. She didn't know why she let her kiss her roughly, lips pressed forcefully against her own, or why she had kissed him back for a minute or two. It was only when his hand had trailed under her shirt and his other hand was tightly squeezing her thigh that she realized the horrible mistake she was making. Pulling back, the Champion flattened her shirt, pushed his hands off of her and _ran._

After that awkward situation, his number disappeared from her pokegear, and suddenly, Silver was a stranger again.

 _iii._

Crystal does not deserve Lance. He tells her otherwise, but she knows it to be true.

She doesn't deserve his kindness, his staunch loyalty, his love. Crystal is like a ticking time bomb; unpredictable and could explode at any moment. Lance doesn't deserve someone like that. He deserves someone who will stay, who will greet him every morning with a bright smile and a cup of ready made coffee. That someone is not Crystal, because she disappears each morning, leaving Lance to wake up to an empty bed and an eerily quiet house.

Then one day, Crystal leaves, and she does not return, leaving a heartbroken former, now current, champion and a horrified region in her wake.

Leaving Lance with only a scribbled note on his bedside table, and his memories.

 _iv._

Red is disappointed. He doesn't say a word, as usual, but Crystal can tell.

The chilly mountain breeze whips through her hair, letting the strands of chestnut brown fly through the air as she pulls her jacket tighter around her body, teeth chattering and goosebumps forming on her pale skin. Red seems unaffected by the cold as he sits in his seat, loyal Pikachu resting on his shoulder, and simply looks at her.

Hollow black eyes stare into her own brown ones.

And then he opens his mouth.

"Why?" he asks, voice quiet and hoarse from years of neglect, yet still housing a note of strength and power. He asks a question Crystal cannot answer.

"I didn't have a choice," she weakly protests, but it sounds pathetic even in her own ears. Red just surveys her, a message clear in his dark eyes.

 _You always have a choice._

 _v._

She visits Falkner last, and she doesn't know why she even does. Crystal thinks it's because he had been her first gym badge, her first challenge, the first obstacle in her path.

He is the most accepting of her decision, if you can call what he says _acceptance._ Falkner is still disappointed in her, and he doesn't bother to hide that in his voice, but deep deep down, he knows why she has to do it - strange, because Crystal doesn't even know why herself.

Falkner rambles on and on, but Crystal is an attentive listener as they sit up in the air, on the wooden beams where she battled him and won. He speaks of self-discovery and freedom, of challengers and a tiny brown-haired girl who was afraid of heights. Crystal closes her eyes and tries to conjure up an image of that girl, of who she used to be, but she finds nothing but a tired teenager with dark circles around her empty eyes.

"You've changed a lot," the blue-haired gym leader says, staring out the open window as Pidgey and Spearow fly by.

"Yeah. I have."

"Promise to come visit, once in a while?"

"Promise."

Falkner never saw her again.

 _vi._

and so she dyed her hair and ran away.

 _vii._

A woman moves into the house next to his when Lucas is 9, which is rather odd as Twinleaf Town rarely attracts any visitors at all. She's very pretty, with hair as blue as a clear summer sky and eyes as green as a freshly cut and polished emerald, and when Lucas and his mother visit her like normal, polite neighbors, she and his mother get along extremely well.

"My name is Kris," she says, and smiles slightly, but her smile isn't happy. It is sad, and that makes young, naive Lucas sad as well, so he visits her every week, with a plateful of his mother's freshly baked baked chocolate chip cookies every time. Kris smiles whenever he comes around, and Lucas likes to pretend that her smile gets happier with every visit.

"Where did you come from?" He asks curiously one time.

"Johto," she says shortly in a sharp voice, fingers tightening around the rag held in her hands. Lucas falls silent.

 _viii._

One day, as she sits in her quaint little house in Twinleaf Town, Sinnoh, she hears about a young and pretty brunette called Lyra. Lyra, who had defeated Team Rocket when they attempted a reincarnation. Lyra, who had toppled Lance from his position as champion. Lyra, who had thawed Lance's newly frozen heart.

Crystal hears about Lyra, and she smiles.

Johto deserved a champion who would stay.

Lance deserved a girl who would stay.

 _ix._

A week after Lucas defeats Cynthia and becomes the Sinnoh region's newest champion, he returns to Twinleaf Town and visits Kris in a spur-of-the-moment decision. She is still young and pretty, in her early to mid-twenties at most, with her blue hair falling in loose waves down her back. Lucas tells her about it all, because his mother would coddle him and whatever friends he had just wouldn't understand.

Kris in turn tells him about a pretty brown-haired girl called Crystal, who defeated the 8 gyms of Johto and became the champion of the region.

"But isn't the Champion of Johto called Lyra?" Lucas asks, confused but still interested in her story. She just smiles sadly at him and carries on, speaking of a scared little girl called Crystal who ran away from the region, ran away from a boy - no, two, maybe even three, Kris corrects herself - who loved her and a region who adored her.

"And where did she run away to?" Lucas asks, even though he's already figured out the answer.

"Sinnoh."

 _x._

The pretty lady with the blue hair and green eyes disappeared from Twinleaf Town a mere week later. Lucas found a note left on the peeling white-painted wall, written in Kris - no, Crystal's neat, loopy cursive.

 _I was always too good at running away._


End file.
